Rio place is added incentive as Yorkshire fighters set their sights on British titles

Alex Miller

Some of Yorkshire’s finest amateur boxing talent can take a giant leap towards Olympic selection on Thursday night at the Great Britain Amateur Boxing Championships in Sheffield.

The meet takes place at the English Institute of Sport and pits British Amateur Boxing Association selections against winner’s of this year’s Great Britain Elite Three Nations competition for the top GB titles.

Winners who are not already part of the GB boxing squad will also secure an assessment with the team and the chance to join the ‘World-Class Performance Programme’ for boxing as a funded athlete before final selections for Rio are announced.

The Yorkshire hopefuls include light-flyweight Sunny Edwards, who will have home crowd advantage against Scotland’s Aqeel Ahmed.

Leeds welterweight Connor Loftus will also want to impress as he does battle with Hertfordshire’s Cyrus Pattinson, whilst on the women’s card, up-and-coming Sheffield middleweight Natasha Gale will fight 2012 world champion Savannah Marshall.

Leeds flyweight Jack Bateson was set to take on rising GB squad team-mate Muhammad Ali, but an eye injury to the Bradfordian means Bateson now faces largely unknown Romanian Ionita Alexandru in an international exhibition match.

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